History YMMV / Destiny2

** When it was released, ''The Witch Queen'' was quickly considered to be one of the best expansions in the series history. This is thanks in part to it's campaign that greatly expands on the setting with a compelling villain and sub-faction in the from of the ''Savathun'' and ''The Lucent Brood'' respectfully. Savathun's Throne World was also well liked for the art designs of it's maps and world building the brought. It also introduced the ''Legendary'' mode that offers a challenge many players have been seeking. In comparison the following expansion, ''Lightfall'' recieved a much colder reception, with it's plot, setting of ''Neomuna'', and even it's own Legendary mode being seen as a drop in quality in comparison to ''The Witch Queen.''

** When it was released, ''The Witch Queen'' was quickly considered to be one of the best expansions in the series history. This is thanks in part to it's campaign that greatly expands on the setting with a compelling villain and sub-faction in the from of the ''Savathun'' and ''The Lucent Brood'' respectfully. Savathun's Throne World was also well liked for the art designs of it's maps and world building the brought. It also introduced the ''Legendary'' mode that offers a challenge many players have been seeking. In comparison the following expansion, ''Lightfall'' recieved a much colder reception. As it's campaign was critcized for it's drop in quality from ''Witch Queen''. Itt's setting of ''Neomuna'' was underdeveloped, it's plot coming off more as A filler arc, and even it's Legendary Mode was criticzed for downplaying it's difficulty.
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** When it was released, ''The Witch Queen'' was quickly considered to be one of the best expansions in the series history. This is thanks in part to it's campaign that greatly expands on the setting in a meaningful way, with a compelling villain and sub-faction in the from of the Lucent Brood, and it also introduced the ''Legendary'' mode that offers a challenge many players have been seeking. In comparison, the following expansion, ''Lightfall'' recieved a very cold reception, with many fans being especially let down by how it's campaign [[Sequilitis had a drip in quality]] in comparison to ''Witch Queen.''

** The Spider is the clever and charismatic head of the Fallen crime syndicate that rules the otherwise lawless Tangled Shore. Coming into contact with the Guardian and Petra Venj, The Spider would exploit their desire to avenge Cayde-6's death to rid himself of the Scorn infesting the Tangled Shore. The Spider would place bounties on criminals for the Guardian to kill and allow him to regain control of the Tangle Shore and in return he would give them the locations of the Scorn Barons and their leader Uldren Sov, all of whom played a part in Cayde-6's murder. When The Spider learns that his brother Siviks stole all the weaponry from the Black Armory, he has the Guardian kill him to establish business relations with the Black Armory, making The Spider the Guardian's most unscrupulous ally.
** The machinations of the Witch Queen, [[AboveGoodAndEvil Savathûn]], start bearing their fruits in this game, with sweeping changes to the status quo. In Year 2, she conspires with Riven to place the Dreaming City under a timeloop to try and reach the Awoken's homeworld, achieving an infinite death tribute for her Worm [[EvilOnlyHasToWinOnce if she succeeds even once]]. In Year 3, she manipulates the Hidden Swarm on the Moon into fighting and dying against the Guardians, further decimating Oryx's lineage and strengthening Savathûn's command of the Hive. She later repeatedly interferes with communion attempts between the Pyramids and the Guardians, but fails and is excommunicated by the Darkness. Savathûn then finds refuge by impersonating Osiris throughout Year 4, mentoring the fledgling Crow while testing the Vanguard's fragile, budding alliances with the Cabal and the Fallen. When she finally reveals herself, Savathûn strikes a deal with Mara Sov to exorcise her Worm in exchange of releasing the real Osiris, keeping true to her word once the ritual is over. In Year 5, Savathûn emerges with powers over the Light, unsealing Mars and beating back First Disciple Rhulk. Upon TheReveal that the Traveler gave the Light to the Hive, [[MemoryGambit Savathûn regains the memories she lost while resurrected]] and intends to seal the Traveler away to protect it from [[GreaterScopeVillain The Witness]]. While Savathûn's grand plan is foiled, she admits in her dying breath that both she and the Guardians have miscalculated each other's willingness to protect the Traveler, with the task to fight The Witness now upon the Guardians.

** The teaser trailer for ''Shadowkeep'' revived the infamous [[https://twitter.com/Dustinkcouch/status/1057094474227240960 "Moon's haunted" tweet]] and turned it into a ''Destiny'' meme. Not even a week after the reveal, Creator/{{CNN}} [[https://twitter.com/cnn/status/1138525254995927043?lang=en tweeted out]] new information on the Moon's south pole, revealing that there's something massive beneath its surface. The highest rated reply?

*** This was furthered in the ''Lightfall'' showcase where Bungie announced that, due to behind-the-scenes improvements to their engine, they would no longer be sunsetting Expansion content, and that every expansion starting with ''Shadowkeep'' would remain in the game as a permanent addition.

** Upon introduction Nimbus became viewed as one of the most unlikeable characters in the Destiny saga, after so much effort trying to build up the epic legacy of the Cloudstriders they came across as a TalkativeLoon with no functional contribution to the story beyond superficial action sequences. [[spoiler: After Rohans' HeroicSacrifice]] they remained blissfully jovial despite the weight it should have and they continue as one of the location vendor and MissionControl, constantly in your ear. ''Lightfall'' already being one of the worst reviewed expansions of the game didn't help any. Though the mission for Deterministic Chaos does manage to bring some seriousness to the character.

** Following the disatorous State of the Game post weeks before The Final Shape Showcase, Joe Blackburn [[https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/article/joe_summary released a sixteen minute video]] which included the formation of a [=PvP=] Strike Team, A Cruicible Map Pack in 2024, a set of Eververse Armor being made earnable in activites in Season 22, a renewed focus on communication from the Community Managers, and Joe himself streaming Destiny 2 in order to talk more directly to the community.

** Following the disatorous State of the Game post weeks before The Final Shape Showcase, Joe Blackburn [[https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/article/joe_summary released a ''sixteen minute video'']] which included the formation of a [=PvP=] Strike Team, A Cruicible Map Pack in 2024, a set of Eververse Armor being made earnable in activites in Season 22, a renewed focus on communication from the Community Managers, and Joe himself streaming Destiny 2 in order to talk more directly to the community.

** After Joe Blackurn took over as the Lead Director of Destiny 2, he released a [[https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/50124 massive update]] that contained a ton of news that the playerbase took extremely positively. First and foremost: Sunsetting, or the act of imposing a Power cap on weapons and armor, is gone. Second: it was announced that ''The Witch Queen'' expansion was being delayed until early 2022. Considering the reception that ''Beyond Light'' had, many are hopeful that this will mean more content (such as Strikes and PvP maps) will be added to the expansion. Third: The seasonal Power Grind is being massively reduced. Due to Sunsetting, the Power Cap was raised by 50 each season. Now it's going down to 10 per season, eliminating a grind that virtually all players found boring and unengaging. Fourth: PvP Adjustments including A fix for "3-peeking," or the act of using third-person weapons or emotes to look around corners that you otherwise shouldn't be able to, an adjustment to Stasis subclasses to make them more balanced in PvP, and the announcement of weapon archetype rebalancing in PvP. Fifth: Shaders are back to being unlocks, solving a minor, but persistent, inventory management issue that has persisted ever since the start of the game. Sixth and last: Bungie preemptively addressed a concern with crossplay in PvP, informing players that, unless PC players deliberately invite a console player into their group, console and PC players would not play together in PvP.

* ToughActToFollow:
** It's generally agreed that ''Season of Arrivals'' is considered the best season in ''Destiny 2'', both for finally bringing The Black Fleet into the picture and having an enjoyable seasonal activity that is essentially a game of gambit in [=PvE=] format. While many seasons afterward were generally well-received, with ''Season of the Chosen'' being one of the standouts, many felt the seasonal activities weren't as enjoyable as ''Arrival'''s was.
** Narrowly averted with Zavala's recasting following the passing of Creator/LanceReddick. While many felt that the character would always be associated with Reddick's performance, and some felt conflicted about the character remaining in the game, the fans' opinion was near-unanimous that if Zavala had to stay, Creator/KeithDavid -- a beloved veteran VA / character actor with a similarly deep, smooth baritone -- was the best possible choice to continue the role. Bungie's announcement that they would not be replacing any of Reddick's voice lines from older seasons also helped make the turnover more acceptable for the community.

** Narrowly averted with Zavala's recasting following the passing of Creator/LanceReddick. While many felt that the character would always be associated with Reddick's performance, and some felt conflicted about the character remaining in the game, the fans' opinion was near-unanimous that if Zavala had to stay, Creator/KeithDavid -- a beloved veteran VA / character actor with a similarly deep, smooth baritone -- was the best possible choice to continue the role.

* ToughActToFollow: It's generally agreed that ''Season of Arrivals'' is considered the best season in ''Destiny 2'', both for finally bringing The Black Fleet into the picture and having an enjoyable seasonal activity that is essentially a game of gambit in [=PvE=] format. While many seasons afterward were generally well-received, with ''Season of the Chosen'' being one of the standouts, many felt the seasonal activities weren't as enjoyable as ''Arrival'''s was.

** Solar, Arc, Void, and Stasis are not fire, lightning, traditional dark magic, or ice respectively. While this is a common assumption for players and viewers who haven't read much into the game's lore, the first three elements are actually meant to represent fusion, fission, and the Casimir effect[[note]]the presence of force in empty vacuums[[/note]] respectively, while Stasis is a type of absence of entropy connected to various scientific models for energy without motion and perfect structure.

** The issues have come to a head with the events of ''Lightfall'' and its accompanying seasons - in particular, ''Season of the Deep'' contains crucial details regarding the origins of the Witness and the Black Fleet, as well as the true nature of the Final Shape. All of these are locked behind Week 5 of the seasonal story, meaning these will never be fully explained to anyone who misses them. Fans have outright stated this content should've been part of ''Lightfall'''s base game due to how imports t they are to the plot.

** The announcement of the Destiny Content Vault was highly disliked, as it involved removing large portions of the game and that gear would be "Sunset" after a certain amount of time after their original drop[[note]]Which means Sunset armor and weapons can no longer be upgraded to the current seasonal cap, preventing it from being viable in high level activities and still only mediocre in regular play despite potentially once being pinnacle weapons for their time. This was largely an attempt to avoid the PowerCreep that had gotten out of control, with some weapons like Mountaintop and Recluse near impossible to either Nerf or one-up realistically.[[/note]]. It should be evident that no matter how they spun the information it ammounted to locking out about half of the gear acquired in the game with only a promise of "We'll give you new gear to grind for." A few months after the launch of ''Beyond Light'' there were extensive struggles trying to fill the gap lost by so much gear that was no longer useable (ElementalRockPaperScissors, Character Builds and content challenges meant you may need, say, a solar scout rifle with explosive rounds and the only ones available were removed). Bungie eventually said they would no longer Sunset gear or mods, so your favorite gun can remain your favorite gun. They also eventually introduced an Armor Synthesis feature so you can change the look of any non-exotic armor, so your cosmetic appearance is no longer tied to armor that was sunset or had good stats. In addition, taking away entire campaigns mean new players will never play it, effectively enforcing a ContinuityLockout just because they joined after ''Season of Arrivals''. ''Season of the Lost'' tried to mitigate this with a special timeline section in the Director that gives a summary of both past and present events in the game's story, making it easier to keep track of the overall plot, though players still no longer have access to vaulted events.

** The player Guardian regularly suffers from CutsceneIncompetence, never having an impact on the story other than point a weapon at somebody and maybe drop one or two lines, rendering them a FlatCharacter outside of cutscenes since they don't say a word. In the early days of the franchise this was more or less glossed over, as the universe was still being set up, there was a decent amount of dialogue in cutscenes to give the player Guardian just enough personality to make them stand out, and after ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' Creator/{{Bungie}} was known for making their [[FeaturelessProtagonist lead characters very dry and straightforward]]. Starting with ''Destiny 2'', however, Bungie seemed to suddenly grow afraid of the player doing anything more than that as they became a straight up HeroicMime. Once ''Forsaken'' they are given some more complex motivations that continues from ''Shadowkeep'' onward, but that's only in regards to dialogue - cutscenes became predominantly about other characters in the setting or otherwise trying to expand on the setting. In Bungie's attempt to not invalidate whatever personality or powerset a player may have in mind for their character, they end up accidentally making the player Guardian feel like a mindless attack dog that someone can just order around.
*** The issue became significant in ''Season of Plunder'', the final storyline cutscene have Mithrax and Eramis engage in a sword duel in front of Eido who pleads with them to stop. The player Guardian has to initiate the cutscene by entering the enclosure to rescue Eido and should by all rights have all the incentive to intervene and stop both... just stands back and does absolutely nothing. When Eramis escapes it's as though they had no investment in the outcome.

** A large amount of the exposition regarding Savathun's grand plan with the Distributary, a black hole, is grounded in RealLife research regarding black holes, including [[spoiler: the part where you are told the only way to truly safekeep your secrets is to cast them into a black hole, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox where they will be recorded as information and be among the very last of the universe's objects to disappear completely]]]].

** The D.A.R.C.I gets flak for having what is perceived to be a useless exotic perk: highlighting enemy targets and show the distance between the player and the target. Coupled with its low damage and high rate of fire, the sniper's categorizing as a Heavy weapon was tenuous at best. Several updates buffed its perks to be able to solidly stay in the Heavy slot, even with a bunch of other powerful Heavy Exotics like the gamebreaking Whisper of the Worm, another Heavy sniper. After spending all of Year 2 being a solid DPS contender, though, the D.A.R.C.I. (along with the Whisper) has been put back into irrelevance with the blanket nerf to snipers in Season of the Worthy, moreso with ''Beyond Light''[='=]s addition of Cloudstrike, which deals as much DPS and is significantly more useful in add-clearing while staying in the Special weapon category.

*** ''Season of Plunder'' in particular has been criticized as being a particularly weak season, with some claiming it to be worse than ''Worthy''. In spite of having a strong start and being a welcome BreatherEpisode after the harrowing events of ''Risen'' and ''Haunted'', it ended up petering out partway through, due to issues with post-Ketchcrash/Expedition dialogues not playing correctly no matter how far in the story you were, questionable story beats (like the relics' power never being explained beyond just maybe influencing people's dark impulses), and a community event coming in the final two weeks that came across as incredibly lackluster at best and downright insulting at worst, given how little changes in the Eliksni Quarter when it's finished. On top of this, the final cutscene has gained criticism for the {{Narm}} potential of [[spoiler:Mithrax using the relics' Darkness power to make tea to reawaken Osiris]], seen by some as an incredibly weak ending that gives no answers to questions it raised and gives the impression it was phoned in.

* TaintedByThePreview: Titan mains were unhappy with the reveal of the Strand Subclass for Titans, the Berserker. The chief complaint was that it was yet another Titan subclass with a strong focus on melee and a roaming super that emphasized close-range combat, [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks like almost every single other Titan Subclass.]] Bungie's tone-deaf response in which they basically told Titan mains that "Titans are the punch stuff class" didn't exactly help matters.

** Rift's introduction to ''D2'' was given a complete overhaul from ''D1'', and for the worse; scoring now happens on dunking, and the teams are reset at spawn after each dunk, killing any semblance of momentum you might have gained; there's a long 10-second respawn timer with the option to have a teammate revive, and you can respawn in enemy territory ''[[SkewedPriorities even if you're defending your Rift]]''. And this is not even getting started with the bugs that can make the game mode unplayable [[note]]The Spark can fall through the floor and never reappear, leaving the match objective-less until you're forced into SuddenDeath; and the game can repeatedly transmat everyone out until the match breaks if you happen to dunk at inopportune timings[[/note]]. Being tied in Season 17 to Iron Banner, a mode only available during one week of any given month, compounds a shitshow nobody asked for. Backlash from the [=PvP=] community was swift and escalated to ''threatening'' community managers. What made it worse is that because of it being so disliked, pretty much everyone avoided it... everyone, that is, except for {{Griefer}} teams that infest the mode, relying on cheese-filled loadouts, deliberately bad connections (where you could land what should be a killing blow only for it to come far later or not register at all, while they can one-shot you with impunity), and the like to make their opponents suffer even more in an already terrible mode.

* ArcFatigue: After The Witness is revealed in ''The Witch Queen'' as the GreaterScopeVillain, year five seasons were used to build up the threat via multiple enemy factions swearing allegiance to them and leading to a major confrontation between the Darkness and the Traveler. When ''Lightfall'' dropped there was considerable player backlash because it only introduced [[KudzuPlot new wrinkles to the story without answering hardly anything]], neither the motivations of The Witness or what The Veil is, resulting in a GainaxEnding. Four months after release and a month into Season of the Deep a cutscene was released that [[TheReveal provides some clarity on both]], but the randomness of dropping ''key discoveries'' of the Destiny setting [[InnocuouslyImportantEpisode during a mid-year seasonal story]] at the expense of the main expansion was seen as exhausting rather than enticing. Most did agree that the information revealed [[EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame was very enticing from a story standpoint]], but took issue with the method of presentation.